Buffett backs Dimon for Treasury

Billionaire Warren Buffett is backing Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, for treasury secretary, he said Monday night on PBS.

“I think Jamie Dimon actually would be, I think he’d be terrific, because if we did run into problems in markets, I think he would actually be the best person you could have,” Buffett said on PBS’s “Charlie Rose.” “And I think the world leaders would have confidence in him.”

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Dimon would replace Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is among those in President Barack Obama’s administration who looks likely to leave near the beginning of his second term.

Buffett, who also discussed Obama’s relationship with the business community, said that it could send a “big signal” if the president appointed Dimon to the position.

In a 2011 interview with CNBC, Dimon dismissed the suggestion that he would succeed Geithner.

“If you know me at all, I am not suited for politics,” he said at the time. “Anyone who runs a company and gets out in the field would say the same things I do.”

“No, Dimon said, he was never interested in the job” of treasury secretary, CNBC reported then.